Remedios Varo was a Spanish painter, who represented Surrealism movement. She managed to combine mysticism with science and math, which served the foundation for the most part of her works. Varo left an impression on many people in art community and contributed to the artistic movements of Surrealism and Symbolism. Her works are still popular all over the world, especially in the United States and Mexico.
Background
Remedios Varo was born on December 16, 1908 in Anglés, Spain. She was a daughter of Ignacia Uranga Bergareche, an ardent Catholic, and Rodrigo Varo y Zajalvo, a hydraulic engineer, whose work often necessitated moving his family throughout Spain and North Africa.
Education
Varo's father played a big role in her education. He used to bring home blueprints from his job, which she copied. Also, it was her father, who developed Remedios' technical drawing abilities and encouraged independent thought by giving her science and adventure books and some novels of Dumas, Verne and Poe. Later, he provided her with text on mysticism and philosophy.
In 1917, the family settled down in Madrid, where Varo attended Catholic school. In 1923, Varo attended School of Arts in Madrid, where she painted her first work. In 1924, Remedios entered the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, graduating with a diploma of a drawing teacher in 1930.
After graduating from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, Varo married Gerardo Lizárraga and left for Paris, where the couple stayed for a year. Upon their arrival to Barcelona in 1932, Remedios got acquainted with the ideas of Surrealism and frequented the "Logicophobiste" group and participated in group exhibitions. At that time, she met Spanish and French Surrealists, such as Oscar Dominguez, Joan Miro and Max Ernst, who influenced her future works. Also, during her time in Barcelona, she worked as a publicist at the company J. Walter Thompson.
In 1935, Remedios Varo separated from her first husband. The following year, in 1936, she met Surrealist poet Benjamin Péret, with whom she fled Spain for Paris and who would later become her second husband. In 1941, when the Nazis invaded France, the couple left Europe and headed to Mexico. Once in Mexico, Varo took on a variety of jobs, which included furniture hand painting, restoring pre-Columbian artifacts and working in commercial design. In 1942, Remedios worked with Marc Chagall, designing costumes for the ballet "Aleko" and in 1947, she went to Venezuela, where she worked on an advertising campaign for the Bayer pharmaceutical company. During that time, Varo also became friends with European artists and expatriates, including Leonora Carrington, Kati Horna and Gunther Gerzso. Her friendship with Leonora Carrington was of particular importance, as the two wrote fairy tales, collaborated on a play and mutually influenced each other's work.
Along with a sense of peace newly found in Mexico, friendship provided security for Varo, who was often anxious and superstitious, smoking heavily. At home, she surrounded herself with small objects, quartz crystals and oddly shaped pieces of wood, all of which held magical powers and great significance to her.
In 1953, the painter began to devote her time entirely to painting. In large part, her paintings are populated with strange humans, engaged in mystical and alchemical activity in dreamlike atmospheres. Her compositions also include architectural features, that make direct reference to medieval art and show her expert draftsmanship. In 1955, Varo presented some of her work at a collective exhibition at the Diana Gallery in Mexico, and in 1956, she held her own individual exhibition. The painter continued to work till her death in 1963.
When Remedios was a child, she used to attend a convent school, as her mother was a devout Catholic. However, she took a critical view on religion and rejected religious ideology.
Views
Varo was influenced by her belief in magic and animistic faiths. She was very connected to nature and believed, that there was strong relation between the plant, human, animal and mechanical world. Her belief in mystical forces greatly influenced her paintings. Varo was aware of the importance of biology, chemistry, physics and botany, and thought it should blend together with other aspects of life.
Quotations:
"Personally I do not think I am endowed with special powers but rather an ability to see the relations of cause and effect, beyond the ordinary bounds of common logic."
"On second thought, I think I am more crazy than my goat."
"I arrived in Mexico seeking the peace I had not found in Europe because of the turmoil there - for me it was impossible to paint amidst so much uneasiness."
"I do not wish to talk about myself because I hold very deeply the belief that what is important is the work, not the person."
"I am more from Mexico than from any other place. I know little of Spain; I was very young when I lived there. Then I lived the years of apprenticeship, of assimilation in Paris, then the war...It is in Mexico that I felt welcomed and secure."
"I am basically interested in the primitive painters, and besides them, El Greco and Goya."
Membership
"Logicophobiste" group
,
Spain
1935 - 1936
Surrealistic group
1937 - 1940
Personality
Remedios was not only a surrealist, but also an anarchist. She believed, that the state was an unnecessary evil, that opposed the conduct of human relations.
Interests
Philosophers & Thinkers
Carl Jung, George Gurdjieff, Peter Ouspensky, Helena Blavatsky, Meister Eckhart
Artists
Hieronymus Bosch, Pablo Picasso, Francisco Goya, El Greco, Georges Braque
Connections
In 1930, Varo married Gerardo Lizárraga. Some time later, the couple divorced and in 1937, Remedios married Benjamin Péret, a poet. By 1953, she had separated with her second husband and was romantically involved with Austrian businessman Walter Gruen, who supported her painting activity.